Thursday, January 28, 2016

Growing Up and Knowing Your Body!

As we spoke more and more about
coming of age stories and the way that a sort of womanhood forms, I started to
notice a common trend. In Tina Fey’s stories, she touches on the confusion of
growing up as a woman, and the sort of vague way that we approach menstruation
and female puberty. Without even talking to Fey, her mother just left brochures
in her room, almost as if what was happening was not meant to be discussed but
was rather meant to be kept to oneself. Again in Fey’s story, she discusses how
most women first discovered/acknowledged their womanhood, through a man that
cat called them or said something to them. This sets up the framework that
growing up is kind of scary and shameful. It has come to represent not just
becoming a woman but also getting treated like a woman. Kaling’s story about
getting boobs also touches on this point that you’re losing a sort of childlike
innocence and entering into this scary, generally unfair, shamed womanhood.

I’m stretching a bit here, but
these ways in which woman are shamed and told to talk about periods and
masturbation and sex behind closed doors (especially in the south), has made me
really passionate about better sex ed for women. Not just better sex ed but a
sort of all encompassing course or program that teaches women about their
bodies, puberty, healthy sex, and a more celebrated approach to growing up and
to your body. When I look back on my sex ed classes in middle school, I
remember we were escorted into a windowless room for a powerpoint presentation
talking about menstruation and teachers gave the option for students to go home
afterwards, as if we couldn’t talk about it in the hallowed coed halls. When it
got to talking about sex, we learned a lot about male masturbation and all the
negative consequences to having sex, but we were missing a huge chunk- what was
sex, how was it supposed to work, female masturbation, and so on. We spent so
much time learning about the end result without even knowing the means, and
that has become significantly more pressing and clear to me, as I still have
friends asking me questions about their bodies. I’ve attached a little video,
which I hope you will all enjoy about female masturbation and how society
should start talking about it!

Here's the link, I tried to put it on this page but having a little trouble so click the link and watch it!

1 comment:

I'm so glad that this class is making you think more about sex education. Last semester, one of my composition students wrote an essay arguing that most sex ed programs actually reinforce rape culture, and she made a lot of valid points. Before spring break we'll read several great articles about how female desire gets left out of the conversations about teen sex and sex education. Kate, I'll be eager to hear your opinion about those articles.